4: Intro to the System (Patreon)

Wake up.

“I’m awake, I’m awake,” Aldo lied, grabbing for a nonexistent bedsheet or blanket. He came up with a handful of dirt instead.

“Wha... Wha happened?”

Big boom happened.

Aldo began to remember as the hopes that those memories were all part of a very bad dream died with the realization that he was lying on a ditch and was half-buried in dirt. The foliage that had covered the area to the side of the road had undergone some severe modifications; some of it had burned to a crisp and the rest was covered by assorted debris. So was he, but to a much lesser degree. In fact, the ground under him looked mostly unscathed. Glancing around, he realized that there was a circular patch, maybe twenty feet wide, that was only partially covered with dirt. His ears were ringing painfully.

He remembered the dog’s words. ‘Stay close,’ he’d said.

“Did you protect me? Us?”

“Ruff!”

Aldo barely heard the dog through the ringing of his ears, but the telepathic words came through just fine.

Yes! Took all my Mana to make the barrier, and it almost wasn’t enough. Luckily, we were just far enough. Lance is a good boy.

“You are,” Aldo told him, petting his head. Lance took the pets much like a normal dog, wagging his tail for a bit before remembering his previous – owner? Friend? Probably the latter – and getting sad again.

“I’m sorry you lost your friend,” Aldo said. He knew the feeling only too well.

Mikhail was a good human. Did many good things. A few terrible things, but only because they needed doing.

“Who was he? What was he?”

Will tell you soon. But we have to go.

“Oh, yeah,” Aldo said, digging himself out. Luckily the ‘barrier’ – a force field, maybe? – had kept most of the dirt away, so he was able to stand up. A look in the direction of the explosion revealed a genuine mushroom cloud. Not as big as the ones he’d seen on videos, but big enough. You didn’t need nukes to create mushroom clouds; any kind of big explosion could produce it. He hoped that was the case here and he wasn’t soaking in a bunch of rads, rems or whatever.

The blast and the cloud must have been noticed for miles and miles around. Thank God the explosion happened in the middle of nowhere, but I bet hundreds of people are dialing 911. Cops and EMS will be showing up and I don’t want to be around when they do.

He still had no idea what had happened, but he sure as heck wasn’t going to find any answers if he got locked up and spent several days – or the rest of his life – answering questions from overzealous federal, state and local officials. And even if he thought otherwise, his gut was telling him to get away from the area, ASAP. The talking dog’s vote made it unanimous.

“Let’s go,” he said, then realized he’d left his backpack and most of his worldly possessions back at Ground Zero. “Damn, all my stuff is gone.”

No, I brought it for you, Lance said.

Aldo looked down and saw his backpack lying by his feet. It hadn’t been there a moment before.

“How..?”

I’ll tell you. After we’re somewhere safe.

*

By the time Aldo could hear the first cop sirens, he’d reached a truck stop he had passed along the way; he’d headed back the way he came on his way to nowhere in particular, making much better time now that a sense of urgency pushed him. The cops might decide to blockade the road while they figured out what had happened. He didn’t know how wide a net they would cast, and he didn’t think traveling on foot was going to get him out of it.

The explosion had been big enough to trigger the dread WMD word, and that meant feds would swoop down like so many birds of prey, emphasis on prey. Maybe they would ignore him and the dog, but he wasn’t sure.

The truck stop was busy; half a dozen semi-trailers and about twice as many regular vehicles were clustered there. Some people were making use of the fast-food joints and convenience stores, but a bunch were outside, pointing and looking at the mushroom cloud, which was just beginning to dissipate.

Aldo thought about trying to hitch a ride out of the area. He had avoided hitchhiking for most of his two years on the road, breaking his rule about traveling on foot a total of three times. Once in Nebraska when an unseasonal snowstorm had nearly killed him, and twice in Nevada when the desert almost did him in. All three times his gut instinct had told him if the people who stopped were trustworthy, and it had been proven right.

After just a few seconds, he shook his head. Things wouldn’t be the same here. Any driver that took him in would probably run into a roadblock and have to answer for any passenger. Unless he could convince someone to hide him, he’d be spotted as a transient leaving an area of interest. If the Feds or local police were worried enough, they might try to question him. And he had a big dog without a tag to explain, too.

I got tag, Lance said.

Aldo realized that the Labrador was sporting a collar, which he certainly hadn’t back at the spot that had been turned into a smoking crater.

“How are you making things appear out of thin air?” Aldo muttered as he moved past the crowd and sat at one of the open-air tables outside.

He noticed a couple of police cars further down a parking lot, side by side in opposite directions so the drivers could talk face to face without leaving their vehicles. Probably gossiping about the incident, but they could be on the lookout for anyone suspicious.

Run the Tutorial here, Lance said.

“Here out in the open?” Aldo whispered, glancing around.

It was a nice winter day in Florida, so a lot of people were using the outdoor eating area. Two thirds of the tables around them were occupied by families having a late breakfast or late lunch.  

It’s okay. Got a privacy field, Lance replied. Can only use it three times a day, half an hour each time. Unless you start howling or throwing things, people will ignore you.

By then, Aldo had given up on trying to wrap his head about the seemingly endless impossibilities that kept popping up. If the talking dog claimed he could make them invisible or inconspicuous, Aldo would accept it without argument. He’d been tossed through the magical wardrobe or rabbit hole to Neverland, and he might as well go with the flow.

“Okay,” he muttered, and noticed a child at a nearby table was looking at him curiously.

Never mind me, kid, it’s just Weird Al doing weird things.

You can just think at me and I’ll hear, Lance told him.

Like this? Al thought back.

Yes.

Okay, do the privacy thing, then.

Okie dokie.

The dog didn’t do anything other than remain sitting by Aldo’s side, but the noise levels around them dropped to a faint murmur, and everything more than ten feet from them became a little blurry and indistinct. Magic or super-technology? Aldo had no idea.

Welcome to Neverland. Population two, Aldo told himself. Okay, how do I get the Tutorial started?

He was hoping the dog would answer his mental question, but the cold voice did instead.

Safe Location found.

Tutorial will begin.

A moment later, Aldo found what falling into a rabbit hole to Neverland really meant.

*

The picnic table, dog, and the rest of the world were replaced with a simple white-walled room with two chairs and a table, also white and almost blending with the floor and walls, all plain and antiseptic like a hospital room.

Aldo was sitting on one of the chairs. He blinked, and there was another person on the chair facing him. A middle-aged woman in a white dress that looked a lot like Mrs. Hudson from ninth grade. She regaled him with a warm, friendly smile.

“Hello, Aldo. I am Tutor, a mental construct designed to help you understand the changes you are experiencing after accepting a System Core. This room is also a mental construct, to guide your induction into the System. I have assumed a form and persona that is familiar to you in order to put you at ease.”

“That means you can read my mind,” Aldo said. “And that doesn’t put me at ease at all.”

Tutor’s smile didn’t waver at all. “I understand and can help ease your concerns. You see, the System Core now residing within you is now as much a part of you as your liver or brain. It has access to your memories much like your brain does. I myself am a construct with limited sentience. You may think of me as a weak artificial intelligence with some personality traits drawn from your memories.”

“Okay. Let’s move on, then. Not much I can do about any of this, is there?”

“Unfortunately, removing a System Core is almost invariably fatal, so you are correct. And once you know what the Core is capable of, and why you were chosen to have it, you are unlikely to want to remove it.”

“I’ll bite. What does the Core do?”

“The most basic answer is, the System Core taps into the power of your immortal form and lets you wield it in a multitude of possible ways. Your access to that power will be limited at first, however. You will have to increase said access in increments, very small at first, then greater ones as you become used to wielding great power.”

“The man who gave it to me. His Core was damaged, and it exploded. Massive explosion. Does that happen often?”

“Not at all. The amount of power required to crack a System Core is usually more than enough to kill its owner. The circumstances surrounding the death of Lord Hattor were highly unusual. I only have a vague understanding of the events surrounding his passing, and only because your Core was in contact with his for a short while, but what I have gleaned suggests the event was nearly unique.”

“So you are saying that if something cracks the Core I’ll be already too dead to care.”

“Almost invariably, yes.”

“How did he stay alive?”

“Lord Hattor was a level 357 Knight Errant. His body was sturdy enough to briefly survive the Core rupture, and also to arrange most of its power to be delivered to the entity that damaged the Core in the first place.”

“The monster from that black hole,” Aldo said. Just thinking about the thing he’d glimpsed sent a cold shiver through him. That had been like staring into a kaiju’s eyes at point-blank range. Arch-Fiend, Lance had called it.

“Yes. An old enemy of the Errant Order. I cannot go into much detail because neither of us has the security clearance needed to access it.”

Aldo started to ask more questions but stopped himself. “This is a lot to process. Let’s start with what I need to know. You said the guy was level 350 or something. Levels like in a roleplaying game?”

“The concepts are very similar. In fact the design of the System was inspired by that sort of games, as a way to structure power progression among Core users.”

Aldo’s parents had both been gaming geeks. He’d grown up playing D&D and later World of Warcraft; he’d left games behind after the fire, but he remembered them fondly.

“So I’m going to be a level one something or other? Do I get to pick a class?”

When he played, he’d favored fighter types or magic users, depending on his mood. Since he was going with the flow of whatever this insanity was, he might as well enjoy the ride.

“Yes to the first. You are going to start at level one. However, the System Core you were given is a dedicated one, meant to impart a single Class.”

Tutor’s smile became brighter. “Congratulations, Aldo Velazques! You are now a First Level Knight Errant.”